


five times during the apocalypse that crowley might have kissed aziraphale (and the one time he did)

by onetrueobligation



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 04:30:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19099759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onetrueobligation/pseuds/onetrueobligation
Summary: it was a wonder he hadn't done it centuries ago.





	five times during the apocalypse that crowley might have kissed aziraphale (and the one time he did)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pyladic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyladic/gifts).



> for hannah -- i don't know why you wanted this, but here it is.
> 
> \--
> 
> hello! this is my first work for this fandom but almost certainly not my last. i stumbled across good omens completely by accident over the weekend and fell in love with it about five seconds in. i haven't finished the book yet, so this work mostly follows scenes from the miniseries. i took some liberties with the scenes, so some of them might not be exactly as they're shown in the series, but i hope you enjoy!

**i.**

Crowley licked his lips in the way he usually did whenever he was nervous, or curious, or focusing very hard on something. It was a serpentine habit he’d never completely grown out of – not even after six thousand years.

‘The evil influences, that’s all going to be me,’ he was saying, examining Aziraphale’s face carefully. Six thousand years was certainly long enough to get to know someone, and Crowley knew him well enough to know when he was coming around to one of Crowley’s – usually disastrous – plans. ‘It’d be too bad if someone made sure I failed.’

Aziraphale looked as though someone had just switched a lightbulb on inside his head. ‘If you put it like that…’ he said slowly, ‘…Heaven couldn’t actually object if I was thwarting you.’

‘No,’ Crowley agreed, biting back a triumphant grin. ‘It’d be a real feather in your wing.’

Crowley met Aziraphale’s eyes. That was the only real advantage of going around without his glasses, he supposed – being able to look Aziraphale in the eye and know almost exactly what he was thinking. That was the trouble with angels – they were always ever so easy to read, and Crowley already knew he’d won, even before Aziraphale extended his hand to shake.

‘Come on,’ Crowley said, finally allowing that triumphant smirk he’d been trying so hard to hide emerge on his face, and stood up. ‘Let’s go get drunk again. Celebrate being godfathers.’

‘Godfathers,’ Aziraphale repeated with a pleased smile, as Crowley reached for the bottle. ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’

Crowley gave him an amused look and poured them a glass each. They’d have to figure out the details, of course, but that could wait. After all, there were still eleven years until the end of the world. For now, they deserved to relax. And so they did, the two of them settling on the sofa with their glasses in hand, closer to one another than they’d ever be if they were sober. Something about Aziraphale, though he wasn’t quite sure what, had begun to grow on Crowley over the past few millennia. And Crowley began to think perhaps this wouldn’t be so awful after all, if Aziraphale was the one who’d be by his side.

 

* * *

 

 

**ii.**

Aziraphale glanced worriedly out the window, listening to the sounds of unsettlingly _real_ gunfire. ‘They’re murdering each other?’ he said, aghast.

Crowley sighed, rolling his eyes down to Hell. ‘No, they aren’t,’ he says reluctantly, though really, if it weren’t for that ridiculously, adorably worried expression on Aziraphale’s face, perhaps they would be. ‘They’re all having miraculous escapes.’

Aziraphale’s face relaxed at once, and he gave Crowley a small, pleasant smile. ‘You know, Crowley,’ he said, patting his shoulder, ‘I’ve always said that, deep down, you are quite a nice—’

But he didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. Crowley had grabbed him by the shirt-collar and shoved him up against the opposite wall with surprising swiftness. ‘Shut it!’ he hissed, pushing his face close to Aziraphale’s, his cheeks burning from mortification. _Nice?_ The very idea of it! ‘I’m a _demon._ I’m not nice. I’m never nice. Nice is a four-letter-word I will not—’

‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ a voice interrupted. ‘I’m sorry to break up an intimate moment, but can I help you?’

What followed gave Crowley enough time to forget about being called _nice_ and gave Aziraphale enough time to recover from the rather startling closeness between the two of them a moment ago. The woman who interrupted them just so happened to be sister Mary Loquacious, which was awfully convenient.

They had just enough time to gather some details about the antichrist before the police arrived.

On their way out of the building, past the ambulances and officers with guns, Aziraphale looked up curiously at Crowley. ‘What did she mean?’ he asked, bemused. ‘About—About being sorry to break up an intimate moment?’

Crowley flushed bright red and walked a little faster. ‘Never you mind,’ he muttered.

 

* * *

 

 

  **iii.**

‘How long have we been friends?’

Crowley stood on the gazebo steps, arms spread out wide. He wouldn’t dare admit it, but it hurt just a little that Aziraphale didn’t want to help, didn’t even want to come with him to some other part of the universe, away from the Earth and the mess it would become. Aziraphale didn’t seem to want anything to do with him at all.

‘Friends--? We’re not _friends_ ,’ Aziraphale said with something close to desperation. ‘We are an angel and a demon. We have nothing whatsoever in common—I don’t even like you!’

‘You _do._ ’ Crowley advanced on him, a spark of anger flickering in his chest. Six thousand years, and Aziraphale had the nerve to say he didn’t even like him. That was angels for you, he supposed. And they said demons were the untrustworthy ones!

But that only seemed to further upset Aziraphale. ‘Even if I knew where the antichrist was, I wouldn’t tell you! We’re on opposite sides!’

‘We’re on our side,’ Crowley hissed, moving dangerously close to him, ready to knock some sense into him if he had to—

‘There is no ‘our side’, Crowley! It’s over!’

Crowley stopped in his tracks, the wind knocked out of his sails entirely.

 _It’s over,_ Aziraphale said, as though it were even possible. They’d never be over. It wasn’t their way. Six thousand years, and they’d been drawn to each other time and time again, always meeting, never arguing, always breaking the rules just a little for each other. Always friends. And now –

‘Right,’ he said, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. Damn him. Quite literally. If Aziraphale was going to overlook everything they’d been through together, then so be it. ‘Well, then.’

Ridiculous, he thought, making his way down the steps and away from Aziraphale and intending to never set eyes on him again. Ridiculous to think that a demon could ever be friends with an angel. Maybe Aziraphale was right. Maybe they weren’t friends. Maybe they never were.

‘Christ,’ he muttered, and then nearly gagged.

 

* * *

 

 

**iv.**

Crowley hadn’t cried since— Actually, he couldn’t remember the last time he cried. He was a demon, after all, and crying was one of the least demonic things one could do.

And yet, here he was, slumped in a bar with a drink in his hand and bawling his eyes out.

Well, perhaps that was an overstatement. He still had _some_ pride, after all. But there were most definitely tears falling from his eyes, and he couldn’t even summon up the energy to brush them away.

He’d tried again, tried to get Aziraphale to listen to him, and it hadn’t worked. But worst of all, Crowley had said plenty of things he didn’t mean, and before he could apologise, someone had gone and set his angel on fire.

Where was Aziraphale now? Discorporated, certainly. No sign of him anywhere. And now Crowley was all alone, miserable, with the apocalypse only hours away.

He’d just started on his umpteenth drink when he caught movement in the corner of his eye, just across the table. Blearily, he looked up.

‘Aziraphale,’ he whispered. Perhaps he was more drunk than he thought.

Squinting at him, he lifted his glasses over his head and peered at him. It was definitely Aziraphale, he reasoned, even if he didn’t look completely _there._

It seemed that Aziraphale wasn’t entirely sure if he was there either. Still, seeing him there was more than enough for Crowley.

‘Did you go to Alpha Centauri?’ Aziraphale asked. Crowley sensed just a hint of sadness behind the words.

‘Nah,’ he sniffed, suddenly remembering to brush away his tears. ‘Stuff happened. I—I lost my best friend.’

Aziraphale’s bottom lip trembled for a moment, and suddenly Crowley couldn’t remember why they’d argued in the first place. ‘So sorry to hear it,’ he said, and went quiet for a moment.

It stood to reason, Crowley thought, that he was a pretty sorry excuse for a demon. His best friend was an angel, and he’d proven that he couldn’t last five minutes without him. But if that was the price of having a friend like Aziraphale, he’d pay it a thousand times over.

Already, Aziraphale was beginning to fade. Crowley wanted to reach out to him and cling to him, hold him right there with him and never let go. But he couldn’t. And so he listened to Aziraphale’s instructions, wrote down _Tadfield_ on a napkin, and then watched him vanish into thin air, feeling like a part of himself had vanished with him.

 

* * *

 

 

**v.**

Everything was safe, for now. The apocalypse had been postponed, anyway, and all Crawley wanted was a stiff drink and to be able to forget all this had ever happened.

The two of them sat side by side in the dark of night, watching the bus as it slowly made its way down the street toward them. Neither of them had much to say. It had been a very long day.

‘I suppose I should go back to my bookshop,’ Aziraphale murmured, to himself more than to anyone else.

Startled, Crowley turned to look at him, his expression turning uncharacteristically sympathetic. ‘It burned down,’ he said carefully. ‘Remember?’

He almost regretted mentioning it at all when he saw the expression on Aziraphale’s face, the twinkle in his eye vanishing and replaced with a much more miserable look. He seemed downright heartbroken. Once upon a time, Crowley would have made a joke about being so attached to a bookshop, but not tonight. Tonight, he could understand how Aziraphale felt.

‘You can stay at my place, if you like,’ he offered half-heartedly.

Aziraphale studied him for a moment, lips slightly parted. ‘I—I don’t think my side would like that,’ he said, with a nervous little laugh.

Crowley’s brow furrowed. ‘You don’t have a side anymore,’ he murmured. ‘Neither of us do. We’re on our own side. Like Agnes said – we’re going to have to choose our faces wisely.’

The two of them went quiet. Crowley wanted to do _something,_ anything to try and make it better, but it didn’t seem like there was anything to be done. And so they boarded the bus in silence.

 

* * *

 

 

**vi.**

‘I like to think,’ Aziraphale said slowly, a blissful smile on his face as he sipped his champagne, ‘none of this would have worked out if you weren’t, at heart, just a little bit of a good person.’

Once upon a time, that would have been one of the worst insults Crowley could imagine. It’d make his very blood boil. But now, it only makes a slow, lazy smile drift onto his lips. ‘And if you weren’t, deep down,’ he crooned, ‘just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing.’

He said it like a love song, like a promise; a promise that six thousand years was just the beginning, that no matter whose side they’re on, no matter where they are, their friendship is fixed in time, set in stone. It’s unshakeable.

Aziraphale blushed and looked down and Crowley decided it was the most endearing expression he’d ever seen.

‘Cheers,’ he said, and lifted his glass, eyeing his angel with a tiny, genuine smile. ‘To the world.’

Aziraphale looked him in the eye with that glint in his eye that Crowley hadn’t seen since before this all began. ‘To the world,’ he echoed, and sounded so earnest that Crowley couldn’t help himself anymore.

He kissed him before Aziraphale had even gotten the words out properly. It felt like heaven and it felt like hell and Crowley decided that he should have done it centuries ago.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
